sLOVEnia GREEN

Electric charging stations allocated in Ljubljana, Maribor, Kranj, Celje and the valley of Logarska Dolina and in five locations connected with the lakes of the Gorenjska region: Jezersko, Preddvor, Bled, Bohinj and Kranjska Gora.

There are currently around 700 electric bicycles, 150 electric motorcycles and 20 electric cars in Slovenia, including four officially registered series-produced electric vehicles.

A 200-kilometre electric-powered trip costs one euro. There are currently around 20 electric cars on Slovenia`s roads that in 2012, when several established carmakers are due to enter the market, electricity is expected to become more accessible.

The first electric vehicles appeared on the roads at the end of the 19th century. At that time they appeared set to become the standard means of road transport, but they were supplanted by the internal combustion engine. Electric vehicles resisted for longest in public passenger transport – up to the middle of the last century. `The combination of economic recession, volatile oil prices, excessive emissions of greenhouse gases and a relatively high level of information technology and other technologies have once again thrust electric vehicles into the foreground,` says Miha Levstek, the director of Etrel. Optimistic forecasts suggest that by 2020 10% of all vehicles sold will be electric, with that figure rising to over 90% by 2050.

Miha Levstek, who is also the deputy chairman of the Society for Electric Vehicles of Slovenia, has called on all competent institutions to give as much support as possible to the project of setting up new charging stations. In his opinion, this project is very environment friendly and also represents independence from liquid fuels. Levstek explains that at the start of the year he and 89 partners submitted a project bid for the opening of new charging stations for electric vehicles. If the project is accepted, they will open 150 new charging stations in Ljubljana over the next four years.